further thoughts on NL

While in both Amsterdam and Dordrecht there were a few things I noticed about The Netherlands.

I've known this about Europe in general for many years, that the rail is used primarily for passenger service while in North America it is primarily used for freight. What struck me about my experience in NL was how frequent and accessible the rail network is, how easy it is to really get from anywhere in the country to anywhere else. When I looked to take a train from Dordrecht back to Schipohl Airport, there was a departure about every eleven minutes throughout the morning. Most of them required me to switch trains at Den Haag, but about once every 45 minutes, there was a train that bypassed Den Haag and required no change to get to the airport. As I was flexible, I took the train that didn't require a switch.

I also knew that Amsterdam was very bike-friendly in terms of bike paths, and bicycle accessibility. I wasn't certain if this would hold true outside of Amsterdam. Pretty much every street in Dordrecht, including in the old part, there were clear guidelines as to where the bikes can go and where the cars go. Through Papendrecht and Alblasserdam, at least on the streets I walked on getting to and from Kinderdijk, the bike path was either adjacent to or separate from the main street, and on every cross street or roundabout, a clearly delineated path for the cyclists.

Finally, I was a little concerned that spoken English outside of Amsterdam might become a concern, and I really don't know anything about speaking Dutch. In all of the cases where I had to interact with people (the AirBNB host, restaurant staff, rail agents, Snacky Dordrecht guy, etc.) they could always help me in English. Even if their knowledge of English was minimal, it was enough for the conversation that was required. In the restos especially, there was always at least one staff member who was quite fluent.

A funny thing happened when I went to get my Subway sandwich for lunch today; I've become chummy with the main guy who works there; as I had lunch early (11h), he was sitting at a table outside of the food court Subway, so I mentioned to him I had just come back from NL. We got to talking about it and he said that he figures that there are parts of Europe that are like 5 years into the future compared to what we have here (my own city), and that the northern countries (especially the Nordic ones, but also NL) seem to be closer to 10 years into the future.

I can't see rail becoming anything like what they have in Europe, here; there is too much freight that is transported by rail here to effectively share the tracks with passenger service. While a new light rail system is presently being built here, intercity rail is on no-one's horizon. This Wikipedia article has few updates since 2014.

Having gone there once, I think I'd like to go back and visit again, perhaps spend some more time there. I'm not convinced it is a place I would want to live, but it sure is a nice place to visit.